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ChickenBones: A Journal for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes |
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Contact -- Mission -- Nathaniel Turner -- Marcus Bruce Christian -- Guest Poets -- Special Topics -- Rudy's Place -- The Old South -- Black Labor -- Film Review -- Books N Review -- Education & History -- Religion & Politics -- Literature & Arts -- Work, Labor & Business -- Music & Musicians |
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Or Send contributions to: ChickenBones: A Journal / 13219 Kientz Road / Jarratt, VA 23867 Help Save ChickenBones |
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The Three Faces of Republican Change Evangelical Christianity, Corporate Greed, and Militarism An Editorial by Rudolph Lewis Putting the Country First Reaching Racial Heights The Need for a Democratic Electoral Sweep Straying from Official Orthodoxy |
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Staying Alive for the New Struggle / The State of Black Journalism / A Case for Condoleezza Rice for President / Minstrelsy and White Expectations |
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Flagrant Racism: The Democratic Party Crisis (ChickenBones Editorial and Discussion) / Jeremiah Wright: Warrior and Trickster Obama 2008 Table |
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Does Wall Street Bailout Doom New Orleans Recovery? Losing the Legacy of Photographer Nestor Hernandez, Jr. By Donna M. Wells
Obama-McCain Debate # 1 Foreign And National Security Policy (Tom Haydn) / Confronting an Economic Crisis (Obama's speech in Colorado)
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By Rudolph Lewis |
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"We are a nation that . . . rewards the wealthy for being wealthy." By Austin L. Sydnor, Jr. |
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A Case for Condoleezza Rice for President Editorial by Rudolph Lewis / Twice as Good: Condolezza Rice and Her Path to Power (Review) |
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Joe Zawinul, The Viennese Wonder Towards a Strategic Geopolitical Vision of Afro-Arab Relations Race, Discrimination, Slavery, Nationalism and Citizenship in the Afro-Arab Borderlands By Kwesi Kwaa Prah No New Thinking on Africana Politics and Philosophy Book Review by Floyd W. Hayes, III |
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Jeremiah Wright: Warrior and Trickster A ChickenBones Editorial and Discussion |
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Telling the Truth about Africa Letting Her Become What She Can and Will Be By Rudolph Lewis |
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Nuking Nagasaki & Hiroshima, Our Nuking Nevada Incinerating Pretty Girls, Atmospheric Radiation, Our Callousness Americans Remember & Speak Out |
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Like a Tortoise Shell (Rudy and & Peggy) / Asa G. Hilliard III Obituary / The Exhilarating Generosity of Asa Hilliard / Wonderful Ethiopians Book II |
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The Mindlessness
is Total: Are You Ready for Nuclear War?—It
is obvious that American foreign policy, with its goal
of ringing Russia with US military bases, is leading
directly to nuclear war. Every American needs to
realize this fact. The US government's insane hegemonic
foreign policy is a direct threat to life on the planet.
Russia has made no threats against America. The
post-Soviet Russian government has sought to cooperate with
the US and Europe. Russia has made it clear over and
over that it is prepared to obey international law and
treaties. It is the Americans who have thrown
international law and treaties into the trash can, not the
Russians. .—Paul
Craig Roberts
Reaganite Denounces Bush? New Yorker Cover Depicts the Obamas as Terrorists (Williams) William Greider on the Legalizing of Usury by Congress Putting the Country First Reaching Racial Heights The Need for a Democratic Electoral Sweep Straying from Official Orthodoxy |
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Nuking, Westerns, & White Manliness An Exchange between Rudolph Lewis and Ralph Garlin Clingan |
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Remembering the Spirit of the Sixties: A Symposium—Panelists: Dr. Samuel Hay, Lafayette College; Dr. M. Njeri Jackson, Virginia Commonwealth University; Dr. Judson L. Jeffries, Ohio State University, Dr. Charles Jones, Georgia State University. Monday, November 12, 2007. Center for Africana Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 4:00-6:00 p.m. For further information, please contact Dr. Floyd W. Hayes, III, at fwhayes3@jhu.edu. |
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It is Darfur again and the misery goes on By E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot |
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A Case for Condoleezza Rice for President Editorial by Rudolph Lewis / Twice as Good: Condolezza Rice and Her Path to Power (Review) |
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White Privilege ,White Entitlement, and the 2008 Election By Tim Wise
The modern world was invented in the Caribbean
By
John Maxwell
Hurricane Devastation in Cuba and Haiti
Bush administration's heartless lack of compassion
for poor countries
By Miriam
DeCosta-Willis |
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Relevance of Achebe's Things Fall Apart A Discussion by Dr. Rose Ure Mezu & Rudolph Lewis |
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Vulture Capitalism—In the African country of Zambia, over 70 percent of people live in poverty. The average wage is just over a dollar a day, one in five people are infected with HIV/AIDS and life expectancy is merely 37.7 years. Yet, in the midst of qualifying for debt cancellation by G-8 nations, the Donegal Corporation, owned by American businessman Michael Sheehan, bought Zambian debt from Romania. In April, British courts awarded Donegal 15 million dollars, almost five times the value Donegal paid for the debt.The morally bankrupt actions of vulture funds render the commitments to debt relief made by the U.S. and other wealthy nations meaningless. U.S. taxpayer money, pledged to provided relief and assistance through debt relief, will fall into the hands of these greedy corporations. At the upcoming G-8 Summit President Bush should call for a commitment by world leaders to address debt relief and vulture funds. The U.S. Treasury should follow the lead of U.K. Chancellor Gordon Brown and limit the awards vulture funds can claim for these debts. Congress must examine this practice and its impact on our overall foreign policy interests. The international community must employ effective means to protect countries like Zambia who have fallen prey to these vulture funds, including implementing fair and transparent international mechanisms to resolve these matters. Danny Glover and Nicole Lee. Poverty Scavengers |
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Straying from Official Orthodoxy A ChickenBones editorial by Rudolph Lewis What do you say to fathers . . . (Joseph Jordan) Obama Insults Half a Race (Glen Ford) Sexual Morality, Black Male Abandonment, and Stable Households (Lewis) |
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The Importance of Civil Disobedience in Post-Katrina New Orleans By Elizabeth Cook Katrina New Orleans Flood Index |
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McCain's dangerous choice—Yesterday was John McCain's 72nd birthday. If elected, he'd be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for “inexperience,” here's who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people. Huh? Who is Sarah Palin? Here's some basic background: She is really just a mayor from a small town outside Anchorage who has been a governor for only 1.5 years, and has ZERO national and international experience. I shudder to think that she could be the person taking that 3AM call on the White House hotline, and the one who could potentially be charged with leading the US in the volatile international scene that exists today. —Rose M., Fairbanks, AK She is VERY, VERY conservative, and far from perfect. She's a hunter and fisherwoman, but votes against the environment again and again. She ran on ethics reform, but is currently under investigation for several charges involving hiring and firing of state officials. She has NO experience beyond Alaska. —Christine B., Denali Park, AK |
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Killens, the Black Man’s Burden, and the Jena 6 An Editorial by Rudolph Lewis
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Daisy Bates, 1914-1999: What It Means to Be Negro / The Death of My Mother / The Death of Daddy / Daisy Bates: Civil Rights Crusader from Arkansas |
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Does Wall Street Bailout Doom New Orleans Recovery?
Colonial and Early National Financial History A Memo on a Selective Supplemental Bibliography 46,000 Fewer Black Voters in New Orleans By Bill Quigley Jordan Flaherty about New Orleans (video) / New Orleans pre-Gustav (video) Gnarlins '07 / Framework for African Students (Biblio) / Chuck Siler Response to Katrina Oil Wars in the Niger Delta New Ministry Not the Solution By Hakeem Babalola |
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Obama and the Hunger for a Black President (Rudolph Lewis ) |
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Running While Black—So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre. Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.” The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received. But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign — playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck. Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain’s motivation. Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades. He’s obviously more than willing to continue that nauseating tradition. NYTimes |
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Cynthia McKinney Confronts Corporate Media Malice in Court By Glen Ford, BAR executive editor Radical in Pursuit of Peace and Justice Letter to Sister Cynthia McKinney |
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Dr. Nathan Hare's Foreword for Marvin X's How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy: A Pan African 12 Step Model Marvin X --The Pain of Violence and Death in the Hood / How to Stop the Killing in the Pan-Africa Hood |
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The Courage and Character of Obama—"That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down. "We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid." Berlin Speech July 2008 |
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The media problem with black lesbians (Irene Monroe) / The battle on the home front |
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Fidel Castro May Day Speech 2007 It Is Imperative to Immediately Have an Energy Revolution |
Haiti on the UN Occupationon the 92nd anniversaryof the first US occupation of Haiti (1915- 1934) |
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Racial Integration Has Run Its Course—The resilience of civil-rights groups is praiseworthy, but future litigation, even if successful, is not going to alter the fact that most poor children, regardless of race, are attending schools that are not meeting their educational needs. Their dire condition, and that of the schools they attend, is not solely the result of an insensitive Supreme Court majority quite ready to manipulate precedent to stifle well-intended racial-diversity plans. The plain fact is that a great many white Americans, including many with otherwise liberal views on race, do not want their offspring attending schools with more than a token number of black and Latino children. Whatever their status, they do not wish to be burdened by efforts to correct the results of racial discrimination that they do not believe they caused. Their opposition may not be as violent or as vast as it was during the early years after the Brown decision, but it is widespread, deeply felt, and if history is any indication not likely to change any time soon. Derrick Bell. Desegregations Demise. The Chronicle of Higher Education |
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The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (In Memory of My friend, Chauncey Bailey) By Dr. M (aka Marvin X) What’s Going On? by Kam Williams The Assassination of Chauncey Bailey by Jean Damu |
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Labor Must Battle Racism to Elect Obama (Trumka) Sexual Morality, Black Male Abandonment, and Stable Households (Lewis) Ten Days That Changed Capitalism—Officials Improvised To Rescue Markets (Wall Street Journal ) Hancock: A Black Family Man's View (Agozino) |
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Death of the American Republic—In years to come, historians may look back on U.S. press coverage of George W. Bush’s presidency and wonder why there was not a single front-page story announcing one of the most monumental events of mankind’s modern era – the death of the American Republic and the elimination of the “unalienable rights” pledged to “posterity” by the Founders. The historians will, of course, find stories about elements of this extraordinary event—Bush’s denial of habeas corpus rights to a fair trial, his secret prisons, his tolerance of torture, his violation of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches, his “signing statements” overriding laws, the erosion of constitutional checks and balances. But the historians will scroll through front pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post and every other major newspaper – as well as scan the national network news and the 24-hour cable channels – and find not a single story connecting the dots, explaining the larger picture: the end of a remarkable democratic experiment which started in 1776 and which was phased out sometime in the early 21st century. Robert Parry, Bush's Mafia Whacks the Republic (consortiumnews.com)
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for Breaking the Law? Some Think It's Time!
Time To Impeach Bush by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon |
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Telling the Truth about Africa Letting Her Become What She Can and Will Be By Rudolph Lewis |
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In a world where poetry is a contest at
best and a competition at worst, where the importance of a
painting is gauged by the price it can be sold for—we are to
be counted among the lost. And so when I say that we need
leaders and that those leaders must come from our youth, it is
no idle statement. We need our young people because without
their dreams to guide us we will have only cable TV and grain
alcohol for succor. "I still think today as yesterday that the color line is a great problem of this century. But today I see more clearly than yesterday that back of the problem of race and color lies a greater problem which both obscures and implements it: And that is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty ignorance and disease of the majority of their fellow men." -- W.E.B. Du Bois The Cost of Lies -- America With Its Pants Down Locked Up in Land of the Free A Lie Unravels the World Lies Truth and Unwaged Housework |
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John Maxwell Table: From the Frying Pan into the Red Mud / My Grandfather’s Bones / The World Exhales / A Week as Long as the Titanic |
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Secretary
Condoleezza Rice as President The Best Thing for America & the Survival of the Planet? The Importance of the Presidency with Respect to the Negro |
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Conversations with Kind Friends / Katrina New Orleans Flood Index / New Orleans Shelters |
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Sudanese Moving North to Israel—Excessively harsh socio-economic conditions and racist attitudes in Egypt seem to be the main reason why Sudanese refugees want to relocate to Israel. Of the Sudanese refugees now resident in Israel 71 per cent report verbal and physical abuse as the main reason for their fleeing Egypt. Some 86 per cent had refugee status with the UNHCR in Egypt, though those crossing the border spent an average of six months in detention upon arrival in Israel. Others are subject to indefinite detention. Sudan is considered an enemy state by the Israelis and Sudanese refugees are viewed as suspect. This is especially the case with Muslim Sudanese from Darfur and northern Sudan. Southern Sudanese are culturally more attuned to Israeli culture, and Israelis warm up to them. "The Israelis are suspicious of us because we are Muslim," complained a Sudanese originally from Darfur. . . . There are an estimated 400,000 Sudanese refugees in Kenya, 400,000 in Chad and 100,000 in Egypt. Yet on the UN human development index, Israel stands at 23, Egypt at 111 and Kenya at 152. Chad is among the world's poorest and least developed nations and Sudan is not far behind. –Gamal Nkrumah. Sudanese refugees fleeing Egypt for Israel |
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No Tears for Brown v Board of Education—In 1990, after months of interviews with Justice Thurgood Marshall, who had been the lead lawyer for the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund on the Brown case, I sat in his Supreme Court chambers with a final question. Almost 40 years later, was he satisfied with the outcome of the decision? Outside the courthouse, the failing Washington school system was hypersegregated, with more than 90 percent of its students black and Latino. Schools in the surrounding suburbs, meanwhile, were mostly white and producing some of the top students in the nation. Had Mr. Marshall, the lawyer, made a mistake by insisting on racial integration instead of improvement in the quality of schools for black children? His response was that seating black children next to white children in school had never been the point. It had been necessary only because all-white school boards were generously financing schools for white children while leaving black students in overcrowded, decrepit buildings with hand-me-down books and underpaid teachers. He had wanted black children to have the right to attend white schools as a point of leverage over the biased spending patterns of the segregationists who ran schools — both in the 17 states where racially separate schools were required by law and in other states where they were a matter of culture.— Juan Williams Don’t Mourn Brown v. Board of Education Education & History |
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White Privilege Shapes the U.S. / Myths of Low-Wage Workers / Ujamaa / New Deal / Raw Deal / Stalling the Dream by Meizhu Lui |
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The
Venezuela Connection: Beating the Gas-Gouging Blues |
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Kalamu ya Salaam Reports: Post-Katrina New Orleans I Love You It's Hard I'm Crazy Cracking Up Stephanie Take Deep Breaths Spirits in the Dark I Am Ashamed of Myself Breath of Life The Storyteller of New Orleans by Elizabeth D. / LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE: The Neo-Griot New Orleans Project Reconstruction of a Poet: The Call: Ideology or Poetry? My Life Is the Blues Producing & Recording Poetry A Black Poetics African-American Language
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Black Policy Professionals in the Managerial Age By Floyd W. Hayes, III |
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Black American males inhabit a universe in which joblessness is frequently the norm: 'Seventy-two percent jobless!' said Senator Charles Schumer, chairman of Congress's Joint Economic Committee, which held a hearing last week on joblessness among black men. 'This compares to 29 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts.' Senator Schumer described the problem of black male unemployment as 'profound, persistent and perplexing.' Jobless rates at such sky-high levels don't just destroy lives, they destroy entire communities. They breed all manner of antisocial behavior, including violent crime. One of the main reasons there are so few black marriages is that there are so many black men who are financially incapable of supporting a family. 'These numbers should generate a sense of national alarm,' said Senator Schumer. . . . Robert Carmona, president of Strive, an organization that helps build job skills, told Senator Schumer's committee, 'What we've seen over the last several years is a deliberate disinvestment in programs that do work.' Bob Herbert. The Danger Zone March 15, 2007 |
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Atlanta
Constitution on Race Problem
Origin
of Segregation
Intermarriage
a No-No
Who
Wants Integration
The
Problem of Integration
The
Racial Problem History of the Negro Negro Press / Negro Progress in American Education Cornish and Russwurm / A Black Aesthetic Obama 3 and Other Poems (Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani) The 10 Biggest Myths About Black History (Bennett) The Propaganda of History (Du Bois) Victor E. Dike, Democracy and Political Life in Nigeria & The Osu Caste System in Igboland: A Challenge for Nigerian Democracy |
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By Uche Nworah |
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Nuking, Westerns, & White Manliness An Exchange between Rudolph Lewis and Ralph Garlin Clingan |
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Rodney D. Foxworth, Jr.-- School Daze A Depravity of Logic A Naïve Political Treatise A Report on a Gathering at Red Emma's Urban Legends |
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Do You Know This Man? Is He Africa's Saddam Hussein? |
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Sonia On My Mind By Askia Muhammad / Obama and the Hunger for a Black President by Rudolph Lewis
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Telling
the Truth about Africa
Letting Her Become What She Can and Will Be By Rudolph Lewis |
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William Rhoden’s Forty Million Dollar Slaves and the Call for Black Athletic Leadership By William Broussard |
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Lies, Truth and Unwaged Housework A Response to The Lie That Unraveled the World
By Peter Taylor |
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Nobody ever chose to be a slave by Thabo Mbeki & a Note from Ezili Dantò |
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No Oil, No Reconstruction—On Thursday, May 24, the US Congress voted to continue the war in Iraq. The members called it "supporting the troops." I call it stealing Iraq's oil - the second largest reserves in the world. The "benchmark," or goal, the Bush administration has been working on furiously since the US invaded Iraq is privatization of Iraq's oil. Now they have Congress blackmailing the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi people: no privatization of Iraqi oil, no reconstruction funds. This threat could not be clearer. If the Iraqi Parliament refuses to pass the privatization legislation, Congress will withhold US reconstruction funds that were promised to the Iraqis to rebuild what the United States has destroyed there. Ann Wright What Congress Really Approved: Benchmark No. 1: Privatizing Iraq's Oil for US Companies |
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